BRANDON, Miss. (AP) — Six white former Mississippi law officers pleaded guilty on Monday to state charges for torturing two Black men in a racist assault. All six had recently admitted their guilt in a connected federal civil rights case.
Prosecutors say some of the officers nicknamed themselves the “Goon Squad” because of their willingness to use excessive force and cover up attacks including the assault that ended with a deputy shooting one victim in the mouth.
In January, the officers entered a house without a warrant and handcuffed and assaulted the two men with stun guns, a sex toy and other objects. The officers mocked them with racial slurs throughout a 90-minute torture session, then devised a cover-up that included planting drugs and a gun, leading to false charges that stood against the victims for months.
Their conspiracy unraveled after one of the officers told the sheriff he had lied, leading to confessions from the others. The charges against the victims weren’t dropped until June, after federal and state investigators got involved, according to their attorney.
The men include five former Rankin County sheriff’s deputies — Brett McAlpin, Hunter Elward, Christian Dedmon, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke — and a former police officer from the city of Richland, Joshua Hartfield. Each appeared Monday in jump suits with the names of jails covered by tape.
Each agreed to sentences recommended by state prosecutors ranging from five to 30 years, although the judge isn’t bound by that. Time served for the state convictions will run concurrently with the potentially longer federal sentences they’ll receive in November.
The victims — Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker — arrived together to Monday’s hearing and sat in the front row, just feet from their attackers’ families. They were embraced by Monica Lee, the mother of Damien Cameron, a Black man who died in Elward’s custody in 2021.
Click on the link below to continue…
